Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Analysis of Alternatives 5 Alternative 1: Introduce a new product 5 Alternative 2: Increase promotion 6 Alternative 3: Raise prices and cut costs 7 Recommendations 7 Appendix: Budgeted Income Statements & the Rate of Growth in Profits 9 Executive Summary Shepard Poles is a manufacturing company that has been providing specialized poles in the market for over ten years. Shepard Poles has about three different product lines: hiking poles, downhill ski poles, and cross-country ski poles. According to the calculation on current operating data, the company has incurred a operating loss of $ 165,000 this year. If any new strategic initiatives are not implemented next year, the unit sales and all costs are expected to rise about 7 percent and 2 percent respectively. However, this situation would make the company incur more loss next year, which is about negative $ 293,586.
Introduction: This case summary considers the Richard Ivey School of Business case ‘Creemore Springs Brewery: Branding Without Advertising’ prepared by Mark . Creemore Springs Vice President of Marketing, Howard Thompson, stated issue is whether to expand capacity of the Creemore Springs brewery from 27,000 hectoliters to 50,000 hl. Core Issue: Creemore Springs has been profitable from the first year of operation but is experiencing a production bottleneck - the brew house requires an expansion to accommodate a 50 hl kettle. A $3 million capital investment would allow production to almost double to 50,000 hl. The company has built its brand as a “beer that is discovered” rather than using traditional beer marketing strategies.
The Lockit Company manufactures door knobs for residential homes and apartments. Lockit is considering the use of simple (single-driver) and multiple regression analyses to forecast annual sales because previous forecasts have been inaccurate. The new sales forecast will be used to initiate the budgeting process and to identify more completely the underlying process that generates sales. Larry Husky, the controller of Lockit, has considered many possible independent variables and equations to predict sales and has narrowed his choices to four equations. Husky used annual observations from 20 prior years to estimate each of the four equations.
Belot Enterprises Case 1. Auditor David Robinson’s suggested compromise on the review of the Belot’s interim financial report (second quarter-from April1 through June 30) is appropriate. Because Belot Company has been struggled to survive in a mature and intensely competitive industry for several years, and the company has planned to implement an organizational Nail the Number campaign from April1 through June 30 to boost its quarterly operating income by 100 percent so that Belot Company will not be eliminated by its parent company, Helterbrand. During those three months, Belot Company has made many changes on its operation activities, such as products line, sales program, cost-cutting initiatives, and its accounting measurement, etc. Belot’s accounting general manager, Zachariah Crabtree decided to change the accounting method from “conservatism” to “precise point estimate” to record the company’s major discretionary accruals during its second quarter financial report; therefore, the company operating income dramatically has been increased 140 percent higher than the second quarter of prior year.
The 10 percent increase of private label bags led to some consumers switching to gas grilling and others moving to the Kingsford brand, increasing its market share. The downside of increasing prices was that if it held out on increasing prices another year they may be able to significantly cut into Royal Oak’s market share. The brand managers Smith Boyle and Warren should propose to moderately increase prices in accordance with the price elasticity studies. These price increases should remain slightly more than that of their competitors. They should be able to offset the
Operation Decision for Company A Dr. E. T. Faux ECO 550 Strayer University Quinton Fuller Brief Business Description Company A is based in Ohio and it manufactures headphones. Since the plant is based in the U.S., it encounters higher cost than its peers. The headphone is sold for $32 each and the firm only makes $2 per headphone or 6.25% gross margin. Company A is employing 100 workers, including both administration personnel and production line workers. Currently, the firm’s total costs exceed its total revenue and needs to make a decision as to whether it should shut down completely or continue its operations.
Considering that the net cash from operating activities is reduced 18% in 2011, which can affect their aims to expand. Despite Sainsbury’s have demonstrate increase their store; they are near three times behind their main competitor Tesco how have 2715 stores in the UK (Tesco, 2011). Considering that accessibility is an important value for customers Sainsbury have a disadvantage in this aspect. Furthermore, Sainsbury’s is limited to the UK which is another disadvantage in front of Tesco how have operation in Europe, Asia and USA creating and important economy of scale which make able to reduce cost easily. In terms of Human resources management, J Sainsbury affirm, supporting the development of their employees recognizes the importance of its people in providing a foundation for delivering business excellence, with the intention to make it “a great place to work.” Sainsbury's provides employees with a stimulating and well equipped working environment, training and develop employees, Also s Even though Sainsbury’s sticks to a top-down management approach they have struggled to maintain continuity throughout all of their stores so that their management style is consistent, each outlet is workforce orientated as they embrace the ‘team’ approach and that if they can develop
I believe the monthly meetings between the company and the employees should have been putting more responsibility on the employees to come up with ideas to deal with reduced sales due to the economic conditions. If the company’s income was reduced, perhaps the union should have volunteered cutting back to 4 day work weeks that maintained full production for fewer hours per week. This would have provided the employees to be involved with the goal setting for these shortened work weeks. They would have been enriched because they would have known that everyone was sharing it the sacrifice to keep the company profitable and keep all of their jobs. They would have participated in the decision to make the sacrifice and money would have been the
What are variable pay plans? a. methods of tying compensation to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in order to keep up with inflation b. additional tangible rewards given to employees for performance beyond normal expectations c. compensation that increases as employees gain new job-related knowledge, skills, and abilities d. incentives to meet required performance standards 4. Behemoth Industries has experienced huge losses for the last three years due to collapsing sales of their outdated product line. Behemoth’s stock has plummeted on Wall Street because it has not met projected profits for the 24th straight quarter. Behemoth has moved to a pure pay-for-performance system that is tied to achievement of organizational profit goals.
Check-in service times were exceeding the company standard of three minutes or less, so a team was assembled to determine the best solution. Again, the Six Sigma DMAIC model was employed. Top-Down Commitment: The Six Sigma initiative is supported from the top of the organization down. Implementation of such a program is not inexpensive, with well-paid managers deployed throughout all regions of North America, and internal training programs to grow “Green Belts” (departmental managers seeking to build their own skill sets) into Black Belts. There also is a commitment throughout all brands (Sheraton, Westin, W, Four Points, etc.